f1. Was it unfair to deny athletes the additional $2,500 or so that they could “earn” in the market for their services (playing “major college” football or basketball)? Detail the fairness argument for both the athletes and the NCAA.
2. Should college athletes be free to “sell” their services to the highest bidder among America’s colleges and universities? Explain.
3. Joseph Agnew and Patrick Courtney earned college football scholarships but were injured early in their college careers. Consistent with NCAA rules, both players were accorded one-year scholarships with the possibility of renewal. Neither Agnew nor Courtney received scholarship renewals following their injuries. Both players sued the NCAA claiming its rules forbidding multiyear scholarships and imposing caps on the number of scholarships given per team prevented them from securing scholarships that would have covered their full college experience.
a. Explain why the two plaintiffs thought they had been wronged by the NCAA rules.
b. Do you agree with the two plaintiffs? Explain.
4. Ed O’Bannon, former UCLA basketball star, has been leading a group of athletes suing the NCAA on antitrust grounds seeking a 50 percent share of NCAA television royalties from collegiate athletic contests along with a share of licensing fees from football and basketball video games. Do you think players should receive a share of those two income streams? Explain. [EA Sports, creator of the video games, and Collegiate Licensing Company have settled claims that were raised against them in the O’Bannon lawsuit for a reported $40 million, which is expected to result in payments to players of a few hundred dollars each.]
Four former college athletes representing a class of more than 20,000 former college athletes sued the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) seeking to change NCAA limits on the amount of aid that student athletes can be granted. Under long-time NCAA rules, so-called full-ride scholarships were limited to tuition, books, room, and board.